Podman Installation Guide for Windows 11

Activate Windows Subsystem for Linux and Virtual Machine Platform

a. Click the “Start” menu button and type “turn windows” in the search bar on the top, then click “Turn Windows features on or off” shown below to open a dialog box.

b. Scroll down, look for “Virtual Machine Platform” and “Windows Subsystem for Linux”. Make sure those two features are checked. Click “OK”, then restart your computer.

Install Linux Distribution

a. Click the “Start” menu button and type “PowerShell” in the search bar on the top, then right click “Windows PowerShell” shown below, after that click “Run as administrator” to open “Windows PowerShell”.

b. Type “wsl --install” then press “Enter”. Linux distribution will start installing.

c. You will then need to provide a username and password.

Install Podman

a. Open your internet browser and go to https://github.com/containers/podman/releases

Look for .exe file and download it

b. Locate your installation file and open it. A window will pop up make sure you select “Windows Linux Subsystem (WSLv2)” then click “Install” and wait until the installation process is finished

c. Click “Close” once the installation process is finished

d. Now go to https://podman-desktop.io/downloads/windows and download “Podman Desktop for Windows”

e. Locate your installation file and open it. A window will pop up make sure you select “Anyone who uses this computer (all users)” then click “Install” and wait until the installation process is finished

f. Click “Finish” once the installation process is finished

g. Click the “Start” menu button and type “cmd” in the search bar on the top, then click “Command Prompt” shown below to open a window

h. In the command prompt type “podman machine init” to initialize podman connection

i. After initialization process is finished, stop the podman machine by typing “podman machine stop”, after that type “podman machine set --rootful" and start the machine again by typing “podman machine start”